September 2002
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Aug   Oct

Today's Rant

Jeb Bush can't win with the Orlando Sentinel, even when he does what they tell him to. 

In today's wrap-up for the Tuesday primaries, the Sentinel's Tallahassee bureau chief, John Kennedy, writes:    

Bush's hurry-up selection of Oklahoman Jerry Regier as head of the state's embattled child-protection agency has been seized on by Democrats hungry for fresh campaign themes.  

It's rather ingenuous to talk about a 'hurry-up' selection, when on August 13 the Sentinel said

Turning around DCF requires a change of management at the top of the agency. If Mr. Bush doesn't act quickly, his political enemies will use these failures against him in the fall election.

That was the same day the DCF head, Katherine Kearney, resigned and the following day Gov. Bush announced Regier's selection.  The Sentinel approved, although without much enthusiasm:

Mr. Bush needed to act decisively because the problems at DCF were hurting him politically.

But when controversy arose over the appointment, Bush's haste was responsible:

Much of the blame for the controversy that has battered Mr. Regier rests with Mr. Bush. He acted too hastily...

By acting quickly, which the Sentinel advised, and decisively, which the Sentinel approved, he now has an alleged failure ‘his political enemies will use…against him,’ which the Sentinel is doing

 

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Box scores

Unemployment - 19 out of 20 American workers have jobs.

 

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Today's Reads

The Internet lets people make new friends all over the world.  David Warren finds an old one in Thailand.

William E. Burrows writes about tourists in space.  It is ironic that Russia leads the way when it comes to combining manned spaceflight with capitalism.

The TSA's greatest accomplishment?  They make the Post Office look good.

Instapundit is putting up some fascinating comparisons between the US and Sweden.  Here, he touches on using medians or means to define poverty, something that has always bothered me.  Of course, that's a good way to guarantee employment for the bureacrats, politicians, pundits and others who have based their careers on alleged concern for the poor, since defining poverty in terms of such relative measurements assures that '...ye have the poor always with you.'  Seems like there should be a more objective measure of poverty that would make comparisons meaningful.

A previous post on Sweden.

 

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